{"id":56769,"date":"2026-02-16T14:52:29","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T05:52:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=56769"},"modified":"2026-02-16T14:52:56","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T05:52:56","slug":"longtime-castlevania-and-bloodstained-developer-shutaro-ida-passes-away-at-52-after-battling-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/longtime-castlevania-and-bloodstained-developer-shutaro-ida-passes-away-at-52-after-battling-cancer\/","title":{"rendered":"Longtime Castlevania and Bloodstained developer\u00a0Shutaro\u00a0Ida\u00a0passes\u00a0away\u00a0at 52\u00a0after\u00a0battling\u00a0cancer\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>ArtPlay&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/artplay.co.jp\/news\/shutaro\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">announced<\/a>&nbsp;the passing of&nbsp;<strong>Bloodstained<\/strong>&nbsp;creative director&nbsp;Shutaro&nbsp;Ida on February 10 at the age of 52, following a one-and-a-half-year battle with&nbsp;pancreatic&nbsp;cancer. Prior to&nbsp;his work at the company, Ida was&nbsp;well-known as&nbsp;a&nbsp;programmer and designer at Konami, where he&nbsp;worked on several Castlevania titles.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Having worked with&nbsp;him&nbsp;since Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow,&nbsp;ArtPlay&nbsp;co-founder and president&nbsp;Koji Igarashi said that Ida\u2019s contributions to the gaming industry cannot be understated. While&nbsp;the two had fewer&nbsp;opportunities to work together after Igarashi left Castlevania (and Konami), Igarashi is forever grateful that Ida accepted his invitation to join&nbsp;ArtPlay&nbsp;\u201cwithout&nbsp;hesitation\u201d.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"ja\" dir=\"ltr\">\u3010\u3054\u5831\u544a\u3011SHUTARO \u901d\u53bb\u306e\u304a\u77e5\u3089\u305b<br><br>\u53bb\u308b2026\u5e742\u670810\u65e5(\u706b)\u65e9\u671d\u3001\u5f0a\u793e\u30af\u30ea\u30a8\u30a4\u30c6\u30a3\u30d6\u30c7\u30a3\u30ec\u30af\u30bf\u30fcSHUTARO\u304c\u3001\u7d041\u5e74\u534a\u306b\u53ca\u3076\u764c\u3068\u306e\u95d8\u75c5\u306e\u672b\u3001\u6c38\u7720\u3044\u305f\u3057\u307e\u3057\u305f\u3002<br><br>\u5f7c\u3068\u306f\u300e\u30ad\u30e3\u30c3\u30b9\u30eb\u30f4\u30a1\u30cb\u30a2 \u2015\u6681\u6708\u306e\u5186\u821e\u66f2\u2015\u300f\u4ee5\u6765\u3001\u3068\u3082\u306b\u4ed5\u4e8b\u3092\u3057\u3066\u307e\u3044\u308a\u307e\u3057\u305f\u3002\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/HeFlDLxY7c\">https:\/\/t.co\/HeFlDLxY7c<\/a><\/p>&mdash; IGA (@KojiIGA) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KojiIGA\/status\/2023210325970129391?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 16, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Post translation:<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><br><em>In the early hours of Tuesday,\u00a0February\u00a010,\u00a02026, our Creative Director,\u00a0Shutaro,\u00a0passed away peacefully after battling cancer for approximately one and a half years.\u00a0Our first project together was\u00a0Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow. It is no exaggeration to say that\u00a0numerous\u00a0titles hailed as masterpieces would not have been possible without his contributions.\u00a0His talent was truly exceptional.<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>After I left the&nbsp;Castlevania&nbsp;series, opportunities to work together became fewer, but I am profoundly grateful that he accepted my invitation to join the current company without hesitation.&nbsp;I feel the success of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was also&nbsp;made possible by his tremendous support. Looking back, he&nbsp;supported&nbsp;me for over twenty years.&nbsp;He was someone who constantly thought about games, approaching development as if&nbsp;it were&nbsp;burning his life away.<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>When it was discovered&nbsp;that&nbsp;he had&nbsp;a&nbsp;terminal&nbsp;cancer in September 2024, it came as a tremendous shock.&nbsp;The&nbsp;subsequent&nbsp;year and a half of battling&nbsp;the&nbsp;illness must have been unimaginably harsh. His passing is profoundly regrettable, yet knowing he is now free from suffering brings a sense of relief. Having run at full speed all this time, I hope he can now rest peacefully.&nbsp;<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The game he was working on, Bloodstained: The Scarlet Engagement, is currently in development. It is&nbsp;a precious&nbsp;work imbued with his vision.&nbsp;We shall carry forward his aspirations and see&nbsp;the game&nbsp;through to completion, determined not to disappoint him.&nbsp;We ask for your continued support and encouragement, now more than ever.<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Our thoughts are with his bereaved family, and we offer our deepest condolences.<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"917\" height=\"687\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 917px) 100vw, 917px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/20260216-56769-001.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-56772\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/20260216-56769-001.jpg 917w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/20260216-56769-001-380x285.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/20260216-56769-001-768x575.jpg 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Ida worked at Konami from 1996\u00a0to\u00a02015\u00a0primarily\u00a0as a programmer.\u00a0Aside from Castlevania, he also lent his talents to titles such as\u00a0Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes,\u00a0Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain,\u00a0Shadow of Memories, and\u00a0Sexy\u00a0Parodius. After leaving Konami, Ida would work with\u00a0505 Games, Armature Studio,\u00a0and\u00a0Inti Creates, before eventually accepting Igarashi\u2019s invitation\u00a0to work at\u00a0ArtPlay.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Known&nbsp;by&nbsp;many&nbsp;nicknames&nbsp;such&nbsp;as \u201cCurry the Kid,\u201d \u201cCurry Hermit,\u201d and \u201cCurry Gentleman&nbsp;Shutaro,\u201d&nbsp;Ida first revealed his diagnosis on X (formerly Twitter) back in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/CurryHermit\/status\/1841040447353053470?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">October 2024<\/a>. After&nbsp;letting Bloodstained fans know&nbsp;that he had already&nbsp;submitted his&nbsp;plans for Bloodstained: The Scarlet Engagement (including ideas for the prequel\u2019s story and game design), he&nbsp;asked that they carry on the franchise\u2019s legacy and&nbsp;announced that he would be stepping away from the project to focus on treating his illness.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Following his diagnosis, Ida would like and repost several Castlevania and Bloodstained fan art on X. His&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/CurryHermit\/status\/2017126464664281512?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">final post<\/a>, dated January 30, confirmed that he was growing weaker with each passing day.&nbsp;As a final wish, he asked fans to cherish the upcoming Bloodstained titles, as well as all of the games he helped create.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;It is no exaggeration to say that\u00a0numerous\u00a0titles hailed as masterpieces would not have been possible without his contributions.\u00a0His talent was truly exceptional.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":56771,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-56769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - 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